Milton on the Holy Spirit : Responses to Arguments That the Holy Spirit Is God

Milton on the Holy Spirit

Responses to Arguments That the Holy Spirit Is God

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: The following is the continuation of the summary of John Milton’s view of the Holy Spirit, as presented in Milton on the Son of God and the Holy Spirit from His Treatise on Christian Doctrine (London, England: British & Foreign Unitarian Association, 1908). Page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to this book. Biblical quotations are Milton’s translations. My comments are enclosed in brackets.]
    Next, Milton discusses arguments put forth proclaiming the deity of the Holy Spirit. First, the divinity of the Holy Spirit is defended “on the ground, that the name of God seems to be attributed to the Spirit” (p. 123). Acts 5:3, 4 states, “'why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? . . . thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.” Milton comments that this verse appears “too weak for the support of so great a doctrinal mystery” of the Trinity Doctrine. He adds, “For since the Spirit is expressly said to be sent by the Father, and in the name of the Son, he who lies to the Spirit must lie to God, in the same sense as he who receives an apostle, receives God who sent him” (p. 123). According to Paul, God has given men his Holy Spirit: “he therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his Holy Spirit” – 1 Thessalonians 4:8. Moreover, the Holy Spirit in Acts 5:3, 4 may “signify God the Father; for Peter afterwards says, Acts v. 9, ‘how is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord’” (p. 123). Further, Acts 5:32 states, “whom God hath given to them that obey him” (p. 124).
    Then, Milton discusses Acts 28:25 (“well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet”). He notes “that the names Lord and Jehovah are throughout the Old Testament attributed to whatever angel God may entrust with the execution of his commands” (p. 124). He concludes, “It cannot therefore be inferred from this passage, any more than from the preceding [Acts 5: 3,4], that the Holy Ghost is God” (p. 124).
    Next Milton discusses 1 Corinthians 3:16 (“the temple of God . . . the temple of the Holy Ghost”). However, this verse does not say or even imply “that the Holy Spirit is God; for it is not because the Spirit alone, but because the Father also and the Son ‘make their abode with us,’ that we are called ‘the temple of God’” (pp. 124-125). Continuing, he states, “Therefore in I Cor. vi. 19, where we are called ‘the temple of the Holy Ghost,’ St. Paul has added, ‘which ye have of God,’ as if with the purpose of guarding against any error which might arise respecting the Holy Spirit in consequence of his expression” (p. 125). In Ephesians 2:22, Paul explains in “what sense we are called ‘the temple of the Holy Ghost’” (p. 125): “in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”
    For proof of the Holy Spirit’s omniscience, Trinitarians present 1 Corinthians 2:10, 11: “the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God: for what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” First, Milton remarks that verse 10 does not refer to “divine omniscience, but only respecting those deep things ‘which God hath revealed unto us by his Spirit’ — the words immediately preceding” (p. 125). He adds, “Besides, the phrase ‘all things’ must be restricted to mean whatever it is expedient for us to know: not to mention that it would be absurd to speak of God searching God, with whom he was one is essence” (pp. 125-126). In verse 11, “the essence of the Spirit is not the subject in question; for the consequences would be full of absurdity, if it were to be understood that the Spirit of God was with regard to God, as the spirit of a man is with regard to man. Allusion therefore is made only to the intimate relationship and communion of the Spirit with God, from whom he originally proceeded” (p. 126). To support his conclusion, he cites 1 Corinthians 2:14 (“we have received . . . the Spirit which is of God”). “That which is of God, cannot be actually God, who is unity” (p. 126). In Matthew 11:27 (“No man knoweth the Son, but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him”), the Son proves that the Holy Spirit is not omniscient. The Son declares that the Holy Spirit does not know the Father or the Son unless the Son gives him such knowledge. Likewise, Mark 13:32 provides an additional argument against the omniscience of the Holy Spirit (p. 126).
    Trinitarians claim that the Holy Spirit is omnipresent because “the Spirit of God dwelleth in us.” Milton replies, “But even if it filled with its presence the whole circle of the earth, with all the heavens, that is, the entire fabric of this world, it would not follow that the Spirit is omnipresent” (p. 127). [Most Trinitarians seem to underestimate the quality of omnipresence and have little or no comprehension of omnipresence. To be omnipresent requires much more than dwelling in man, even in every human who exists, who has ever existed, who will ever exist. Omnipresence requires being everywhere simultaneously. It requires filling every void, particle, and spirit in the universe and beyond. Moreover, it requires filling hell completely and every being in it including Satan.]
    On the divine works of the Holy Spirit, Trinitarians cite Acts 2:34, 13:2, and 20:28, and 2 Peter 1:20. In response, Milton remarks that all that is needed to refute this assertion is Christ’s comment “respecting the Holy Spirit, the Comforter; namely, that he was sent by the Son from the Father, that he spake not of himself, nor in his own name, and consequently that he did not act in his own name; therefore that he did not even move others to speak of his own power, but that what he gave he had himself received” (p. 127).
    Trinitarians point to the miraculous conception (Matthew 1:18, 20 and Luke 1:35) as proof of the divine works of the Holy Spirit. Milton replies that “it is not to be understood with reference to his own person alone. For it is certain that, in the Old Testament, under the name of the Spirit of God, or of the Holy Spirit, either God the Father himself, or his divine power was signified” (p. 128). Commenting on Luke 1:35, Milton states that the Holy Spirit refers to God the Father, “unless we suppose that there are two Fathers — one Father of the Son of God, another Father of the Son of man” (pp. 128-129).
    To support that the Holy Spirit has divine honors, Trinitarians cite Matthew 28:19. Milton responds that although this verse mentions three persons, “there is not a word that determines the divinity, or unity, or equality of these three” (p. 129). Then, he cites passages that show that there were baptisms unto Moses (1 Corinthians 10:2), unto the baptism of John (Acts 19:3), in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38), into Jesus Christ and into his death (Romans 6:3), and into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13). Thus, Milton notes:

To be baptized therefore in their name, is to be admitted to those benefits and gifts which we have received through the Son and the Holy Spirit. . . . when we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, this is not done to impress upon our minds the inherent or relative natures of these three persons, but the benefits conferred by them in baptism on those who believe  — namely, that our eternal salvation is owing to the Father, our redemption to the Son, and our sanctification to the Spirit (pp. 129-130).

    Continuing, Milton adds, “The power of the Father is inherent in himself, that of the Son and the Spirit is received from the Father” (p. 130). The Spirit does “everything in the name of the Father and the Son” (p. 130). To support his conclusion, Milton cites Matthew 28:18, 19, and 1 Corinthians 6:11 (“but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God”). Commenting on 1 Corinthians 6:11, Milton notes that “the same three are mentioned as in baptism, ‘the Son,’ ‘the Spirit,’ and ‘our God’; it follows therefore that the Father alone is our God, of whom are both the Son and the Spirit” (p. 130).
    Trinitarians claim that the Holy Spirit’s deity is proven by the invocation being made to him as in 2 Corinthians 13:14 (“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all”). Milton replies, “This, however, is not so much an invocation as a benediction, in which the Spirit is not addressed as a person but sought as a gift, from him who alone is there called God, namely, the Father, from whom Christ himself directs us to seek the communication of the Spirit. . . . He who is sought from the Father, and given by him, not by himself, can neither be God, nor an object of invocation” (pp. 130-131). Continuing, he adds that “it is by the Son that we come to the Father, from whom finally the Holy Spirit is sent” (p. 131).
    Next he comments on 1 Corinthians 12: 4-6, where the Spirit, Lord, and God are mentioned. He states that “it is one God which worketh all in all, even in the Son and the Spirit, as we are taught throughout the whole of Scripture” (p. 132).
    Then, Milton comments on Matthew 12: 31, 32 (the unforgivable sin). First, “no reference to the personality of the Holy Spirit” (p. 132) is made. Second, “if to sin against the Holy Spirit were worse than to sin against the Father and Son, and if that alone were an unpardonable sin, the Spirit truly would be greater than the Father and the Son” (p. 132).  He understands that the “words must therefore apply to that illumination which, as it is highest in degree, so it is last in order of time, whereby the Father enlightens us through the Spirit, and which if any one resist, no method of salvation remains open to him” (p. 132). Nevertheless, Milton believes “that it is the Father himself who is here called the Holy Spirit. . . . [The] dreaded sin against the Holy Spirit will be in reality a sin against the Father, who is the Spirit of holiness” (pp. 132-133).
    Another argument for the deity of the Holy Spirit is that he “bestows grace and blessing upon the churches in conjunction with the Father and the Son: Rev. i. 4, 5, ‘grace be unto you and peace from him which is . . . and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ’” (p. 133). Milton replies, “[Clearly,] the Holy Spirit is not here meant to be implied; the number of the spirits is inconsistent with such a supposition, as well as the place which they are said to occupy, standing like angels before the throne” (p. 133). Milton concludes “that in this kind of threefold enumerations the sacred writers have no view whatever to the doctrine of three divine persons, or to the equality or order of those persons” (pp.133-134).
    Commenting on 1 John 5:7 [which is spurious, but was once a major proof text of the Trinitarians], Milton states that nothing in this verse “implies either divinity or unity of essence” (p. 134). He identifies additional problems with using this verse to support the Trinity Doctrine (pp. 133-135).
    Turning to 1 Timothy 5:21 (“I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels”), Milton remarks that one would have expected the Holy Spirit to have been named in third place, “if such ternary forms of expression really contained the meaning which is commonly ascribed to them” (p. 134) [and if the Trinity Doctrine is correct].
    Finally, Milton gives his description of the Holy Spirit: “[T]he Holy Spirit, inasmuch as he is a minister of God, and therefore a creature, was created or produced of the substance of God, not by a natural necessity, but by the free will of the agent, probably before the foundations of the world were laid, but later than the Son, and far inferior to him (p. 136). [Milton’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit is similar to that of pre-Nicaean orthodoxy.]

Copyright © 2018 by Thomas Coley Allen.

Part 1

More religious articles.

Milton on the Holy Spirit: Scriptural Description of the Holy Spirit

Milton on the Holy Spirit

Scriptural Description of the Holy Spirit

Thomas Allen

    John Milton (1608–1674), who is best known as the author of Paradise Lost, believed in a unipersonal God instead of the triune God of three persons or gods in one God of today’s orthodox Christianity. The following summaries Milton’s view of the Holy Spirit as presented in Milton on the Son of God and the Holy Spirit from His Treatise on Christian Doctrine (London, England: British & Foreign Unitarian Association, 1908). About 150 years would pass before Milton’s essay was published. Page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to the book referenced above. Biblical quotations are Milton’s translations. My comments are enclosed in brackets.
    The Scriptures do not say in what manner the Holy Spirit, which is also “called the Spirit of the Father and the Son” (p. 109), exists or when it arose. “For though it be a Spirit, in the same sense in which the Father and Son are properly called Spirits; though we read that Christ by breathing on his disciples gave to them the Holy Ghost, or rather perhaps some symbols or pledge of the Holy Ghost, John XX. 22. — yet in treating of the nature of the Holy Spirit, we are not authorized to infer from such expressions, that the Spirit was breathed from the Father and the Son” (p. 109).
    Milton notes, “The terms emanation and procession employed by theologians on the authority of John xv. 26, do not relate to the nature of the Holy Spirit” (p. 109). He adds that on a single statement (“the Spirit of truth who proceedeth [or goeth forth] from the Father” – John 15:16) is a weak foundation on which to base the nature of the Holy Spirit — especially since these words relate to the mission of the Holy Spirit and not to its or his nature (pp. 109-110). Moreover, nowhere do the Scriptures say that the Holy Spirit is generated or created or “is any other mode of existence specifically attributed to it in Scripture” (p. 110). [Thus, the Trinity Doctrine of the Holy Spirit’s nature or substance is based on nothing more than pure speculation.]
    First, Milton examines Spirit in the Old Testament. He remarks, “The name of Spirit is also frequently applied to God and angels, and to the human mind” (p. 110). The Spirit sometimes “signifies God the Father himself — as Gen. vi. 3, ‘my Spirit shall not always strive with man’; sometimes the power and virtue of the Father, and particularly that divine breath or influence by which everything is created and nourished” (p. 110).
    Then, he notes that Spirit sometimes means an angle. For example, Isaiah 48:16 (“the Lord Jehovah and his Spirit hath sent me”) and Ezekiel 3:12 (“then the Spirit took me up”).
    Sometimes, Spirit means Christ, “who according to the common opinion was sent by the Father to lead the Israelites into the land of Canaan” (p. 111). [Like Trinitarians, Milton believed that the Son existed before his conception and that the preexisting Son interacted at times with Israel.] To support this supposition, Milton cites Isaiah 63: 10, 11 (“they rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit . . . where is he that put his Holy Spirit within them”).
    Occasionally, Spirit “means that impulse or voice of God by which the prophets were inspired” (p. 111). An example is Nehemiah 9:30 (“thou testifiedst against them by thy Spirit in thy prophets”).
    At other times, Spirit means “that light of truth, whether ordinary or extraordinary, wherewith God enlightens and leads his people” (pp. 110-111). Examples are Numbers 14:24, Nehemiah 9:20, and Psalms 51:11, 12 and 143:10.  Then, Milton comments, “Undoubtedly neither David, nor any other Hebrew, under the old covenant, believed in the personality of that ‘good’ and ‘Holy Spirit,’
unless perhaps as an angel” (p. 112).
    More particularly, Spirit “implies that light which was shed on Christ himself” (p. 112). Examples are Isaiah 11:2 (“the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah”)  and 42:1 (“I have put my Spirit upon him”), which compares with Acts 10:38 (“how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power”).
    Additionally, Spirit is “used to signify the spiritual gifts conferred by God on individuals, and the act of gift itself” (p. 112). Then, Milton cites several supporting verses.
    Concluding, Milton writes, “Nothing can be more certain than that all these passages, and many others of a similar kind in the Old Testament, were understood of the virtue and power of God the Father, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit was not yet given, nor believed in, even by those who prophesied that it should be poured forth in the latter times” (pp. 112-113).
    Turning to the New Testament, Milton notes that “what is called the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of God, sometimes means the Father himself” (p. 113). Matthew 1:18, 20 (“that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost”) and Luke 1:35 (“the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God”) are examples.
    Sometimes, Spirit “means the virtue and power of the Father” (p. 113). Luke 11:20 (“I cast out devils by the Spirit or finger of God”) and Romans 1:4 (“declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead”) are examples.
    Milton notes that in many passages in the New Testament, phrases containing the word “Spirit” should “be understood of the power of the Father, than of the Holy Spirit himself” (p. 114). Examples are Hebrews 9:14, Luke 4:1 and 5:18 and Acts 1:2 and 10:38.
    Milton writes:

I am inclined to believe that the Spirit descended upon Christ at his baptism, not so much in his own name, as in virtue of a mission from the Father, and as a symbol and minister of the divine power. For what could the Spirit confer on Christ, from whom he was himself to be sent, and to receive all things? Was his purpose to bear witness to Christ? But as yet he was himself not so much as known. Was it meant that the Spirit should be then manifested for the first time to the church? But at the time of his appearance nothing was said of him or of his office; nor did that voice from heaven bear any testimony to the Spirit, but only to the Son. The descent therefore and appearance of the Holy Spirit in the likeness of a dove, seems to have been nothing more than a representation of the ineffable affection of the Father for the Son, communicated by the Holy Spirit under the appropriate image of a dove and accompanied by a voice from heaven declaratory of that affection. (pp. 114-115)

    Continuing, Milton notes that “the Spirit signifies a divine impulse, or light, or voice, or word, transmitted from above either through Christ, who is the Word of God, or by some other channel” (p. 115). Examples are Mark 12:36, Acts 1:16,  and 28:25, Hebrews 3:7, 9:8, and 10:15, 2 Peter 1:21, and Luke 2: 25, 26. He adds “that these and similar passages cannot be considered as referring to the express person of the Spirit, both because the Spirit was not yet given, and because Christ alone, as has been said before, is, properly speaking, and in a primary sense, the Word of God, and the Prophet of the Church” (p. 116). Citing Hebrews 1:1, Milton concludes that God “did not speak by the Holy Spirit alone, unless the term be understood in the signification which I have proposed, and in a much wider sense than was subsequently attributed to it” (p. 116).
    “Further, the Spirit signifies the person itself of the Holy Spirit, or its symbol” (p. 116). In Matthew 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22, and John 1:32, a dove symbolizes the Spirit.
    Lastly, the Spirit “signifies the donation of the Spirit itself, and of its attendant gifts” (p. 117). John 7:39, Matthew 3:11, Acts 1:5 and 11:16 and 1 Thessalonians 5:19 are examples.
    Next, Milton asks who is this Holy Spirit, from where does he come, and what are his offices? He answers these questions by citing numerous passages where the Christ gives and the apostles give answers to these questions (pp. 118-119).
    Then, Milton notes that the Spirit “is called the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of God, and even the Spirit of Christ” (p. 119). He cites several verses to support this claim.
    Milton writes,

If it be the divine with that a doctrine which is to be understood and believed as one of the primary articles of our faith, should be delivered without obscurity or confusion, and explained, as is fitting, in clear and precise terms — if it be certain that particular care ought to be taken in everything connected with religion, lest the objection urged by Christ against the Samaritans should be applicable to us —  “ye worship ye know not what,” John iv. 22 — if our Lord’s saying should be held sacred wherever points of faith are in question — “we know what we worship” — the particulars which have been stated seem to contain all that we are capable of knowing, or are required to know respecting the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as revelation has declared nothing else expressly on the subject. The nature of these particulars is such, that although the Holy Spirit be nowhere said to have taken upon himself any mediatorial functions, as is said of Christ, nor to be engaged by the obligations of a filial relation to pay obedience to the Father, yet he must evidently be considered as inferior to both Father and Son, inasmuch as he is represented and declared to be subservient and obedient in all things; to have been promised, and sent, and given; to speak nothing of himself; and even to have been given as an earnest (pp. 120-121).

[Trinitarians have certainly ignored Milton’s advice and conclusions.]
    Milton adds:

[nowhere do the Scriptures] expressly teach the doctrine of his [the Holy Spirit’s] divinity, not even in the passages where his office is explained at large, nor in those where the unity of God is explicitly asserted, as in John xvii. 3, I Cor. viii. 4, etc., nor where God is either described, or introduced as sitting upon his throne, — if, further, the Spirit be frequently named the Spirit of God, and the Holy Spirit of God, Eph. iv. 30, so that the Spirit of God being actually and numerically distinct from God himself, cannot possibly be essentially one God with him whose Spirit he is (except on certain strange and absurd hypotheses, which have no foundation in Holy Scripture, but were devised by human ingenuity, for the sole purpose of supporting this particular doctrine) — if, wherever the Father and the Holy Spirit are mentioned together, the Father alone be called God, and the Father alone, omitting all notice of the Spirit, be acknowledged by Christ himself to be the one true God (pp. 121-122).

    Continuing, Milton states, “It seems exceedingly unreasonable, not to say dangerous, . . . believers should be required to receive a doctrine, represented by its advocates as of primary importance and of undoubted certainty, on anything less than the clearest testimony of Scripture” (p. 122).

Copyright © 2018 by Thomas Coley Allen.

Part 2

More religious articles.

Libertarians Versus Marxists

Libertarians Versus Marxists

Thomas Allen

Libertarians and Marxists are more alike than many realize. Libertarians agree with Marxists on at least one thing: economics is the most important factor in life and takes precedence over everything else. Like Marxists, libertarians believe that economics is the principal cause of social organization. Both treat economics like a religion. To them, country (a territory), nation (an ethnicity), race, culture, and the like have little or no value, especially if it conflicts with economics. (However, unlike libertarians, Marxists find some value in these collectives as tools to create turmoil.)
    Marxists and most libertarians believe that people need to be liberated from nationality, ethnicity, sex (distinguishing between male and female), and religion. Marxists believe that the best way to accomplish this goal is through socialism, whereas libertarians believe that capitalism is the best way.
A major difference between libertarians and Marxists is that Marxists know that they must impose their will on their opponents and proceed to do so. For the most part, libertarians fail to realize that they must force their will on Marxists and other statists and suppress them to establish a libertarian society. Persuasion will not stop those who feel compelled to run other people’s lives. Only force will stop them.
Another real difference between libertarians and Marxists is that libertarians favor little or no government while Marxists favor absolute government. Still, this difference is highly important, for a Libertarian regime guarantees much more liberty than a Marxist regime, which guarantees none. While Marxists want to use the government to destroy culture, etc., Libertarians object to using the government to protect and preserve culture, etc.
Unlike Marxists, who are nearly always wrong about economic issues, libertarians are usually right. However, on social issues and other noneconomic matters, both are usually wrong.
While Marxists promote homosexuality and other sexual perversions, unlimited immigration, and miscegenation to destroy society, Libertarians offer no objection to such destruction, especially when their beloved multinational corporations are promoting the destruction of society. However, libertarians seem to value the family more than Marxists do; at least, they are not as negative toward the family as Marxists are.
Genocide is another similarity between Marxists and libertarians. Genocide by Marxist is obvious. With mass murder, deportation, and integration, genocide by Marxist is too overt to ignore. On the other hand, Libertarians genocide in more subtle ways. For example, few libertarians would object to the Chinese overwhelming the Tibetans in such numbers that the Tibetans would cease to exist. However, most would object to the Tibetans trying to protect their ethnicity by such actions as prohibiting intermarriage and keeping the Chinese out of their community. Most libertarians object to using governmental power to protect and preserve races and ethnicities.
Whereas Marxists see the government as the priesthood of their god, libertarians view government as the priesthood of Satan (even if they do not believe in Satan). On the other hand, libertarians view corporations as angels, while Marxists present them as pure evil (although most Marxists are owned, directly or indirectly, by these corporations). As long as corporations promote the destruction of society and the enslavement of the people, libertarians do not object if the corporations do not collaborate directly with the government in the destruction. Likewise, Marxists do not object. Only when a corporation collaborates with the government to gain a market advantage do libertarians criticize the actions of a corporation.
However, libertarians and Marxists do disagree on some political correctness. Marxists favor political correctness no matter who imposes it because it is an effective weapon in destroying a society and a country. Libertarians only object to political correctness if the government imposes it. Yet, if their beloved corporations promote political correctness, they find it acceptable.
In summary, neither Marxists nor libertarians oppose the annihilation of noneconomic collectives, such as country, nation, race, religion, and culture. Whereas Marxists do not oppose using the government to destroy these noneconomic collectives, libertarians do. Nevertheless, libertarians have no objection to the government allowing and even encouraging, their destruction. Moreover, libertarians promote preventing the government from doing anything to protect them.

Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Coley Allen.

More political articles.

A Letter: Al Qaeda and 9/11

A Letter: Al Qaeda and 9/11

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: The following is a letter written in 2005 responding to an article in the Middle American News.]

    In your May 2005 issue, you state on page 9, “Kreis is parroting the nutty theories of the lunatic fringe about 9/11, denying al Qaeda was behind the attacks.” If al Qaeda were behind 9/11, then it had control of the U.S. government.
    Was it al Qaeda that prevented the FBI agents from investigating Moslems training to fly? Was it al Qaeda that gave suspected and known Moslem terrorists visas to come to the United States? How did al Qaeda get the CIA to train Moslems in terrorism? How did al Qaeda manage to switch the Boeing 747 that left Boston to a Boeing 737 that hit the south tower of the World Trade Center? Was al Qaeda the one who planted explosives in the twin towers and building number seven so that these buildings could be brought down?  How was al Qaeda able to bring down a steel structure where the steel was coated with fireproof material with a fire that probably did not exceed 800°F? Was it al Qaeda that got the EPA to tell New Yorkers that the air was safe to breathe when it was filled with tons of fine particulate and toxic and radioactive material? Why would al Qaeda want to bring down building number seven, which apparently contained evidence that pointed away from al Qaeda? Was it al Qaeda that ordered the quick destruction of the crime scene to prevent independent investigators from finding evidence that would conflict with the Bush administration’s and your conspiracy theory? What hold does al Qaeda have over the U.S. government to prevent it from releasing videotapes, aircraft parts, and other evidence that would support the government’s theory that al Qaeda did it? Did al Qaeda control the CIA so that it could get CIA funding and training?
    How could an al Qaeda pilot, who could not even fly a single engine training aircraft, fly a jet airliner, put that airliner in a rapidly spiraling descent, and then level the aircraft to fly just above the ground into the first floor of the Pentagon — a maneuver that would be difficult for an experienced pilot? The airliner that hit Pentagon was coming from the east and could have avoided this difficult maneuver if it were flown into the east side. Why did not al Qaeda fly the aircraft into the east side where Rumsfeld was instead of undertaking a very difficult maneuver to avoid killing Rumsfeld? (If al Qaeda had as much control over the U.S. government as you insinuate, then it would have certainly known where Rumsfeld’s office was and that he was in his office on 9/11.) Furthermore, how could the airliner flown by al Qaeda have left a hole in the Pentagon smaller than the fuselage, and much smaller than the wingspan, of the airliner that supposedly hit the Pentagon?
    Does al Qaeda operate under different laws of chemistry and physics than other people? How could they create a fire at the Pentagon to burn hot enough to vaporize aluminum (more than 4000°F) yet cool enough not to cremate human bodies (less than 1200°F)?
    Was it al Qaeda that sent most of the fighters stationed in the East to a training exercise in the West on September 11? Was it al Qaeda that created the CIA exercise on September 11 simulating a hijacked airliner flying into a building in Washington? Was it al Qaeda that created the other hijack training exercises that occurred on September 11 to confuse the FAA, NORAD, and others?
    How did six or more of the al Qaeda hijackers manage to survive crashing airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? With the country on high alert, how did they evade capture and flee the country?
    Kreis and many others claim that al Qaeda did not control the U.S. government and, therefore, could not and did not do these things. Conversely, you claim that al Qaeda did these things and, therefore, must have controlled the U.S. government.
    Cui bono! Who benefitted from 9/11? Was it the Moslems? So far, they have had two of their countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, destroyed, turned into radioactive waste dumps, and victimized by U.S. imperialism.
    The principal beneficiaries have been Israel, the rapture cult, the imperialists, the oil industry, the military-industrial complex, and the statists.  They all wanted war with the Moslem world. 9/11 gave Bush the excuse to give them that war.
    Israel got one of its staunchest enemies destroyed and now has a large U.S. army stationed indefinitely in the Middle East to protect Israeli interests.
    The rapture cult believes that a world war must start in the Middle East to bring Christ back to Earth. (Of course, most of the rapture cultists do not believe that they will be around to enjoy the fruits of their labor as they will have been raptured away before things get too bad.)
    The imperialists (like the abolitionists of the antebellum South era) get to remake someone else’s country in their own image. They get to remake the Middle East into a liberal, democratic, humanistic society without having to endure the destruction and devastation that they bring to these people to achieve their dream. At least their idea is noble [in their own minds], and that is all that really matters.
    The oil industry has gained control of Iraqi oil and the rights to the pipeline to be built through Afghanistan.
    The military-industrial complex has made a fortune from destroying Iraq and will make a fortune in rebuilding it — nearly all will be paid for by the U.S. taxpayers.
    The statists have turned the United States into a police state with the “PATRIOT” act, Homeland Security, and similar laws that have gutted what little remained of the Bill of Rights in the name of protecting us from Moslem terrorists. (If Bush were correct in asserting that the terrorists attacked us because they hated our freedom, then we should now be living in peace. In the name of protecting us from terrorism, Bush has destroyed our freedoms. Actually, Bush was correct if you realize that the terrorists to whom he refers are not in the Middle East, but are in Washington.)
    Everyone of importance in the Bush administration, or connected with it, belongs to one or more of these aforementioned groups.
    Al Qaeda had little to gain from 9/11 while these aforementioned groups have gained enormous wealth and power from 9/11. To believe that al Qaeda was the mastermind of 9/11 is the really nutty lunatic theory. This theory has nothing to support it but assertions by the open-borders, unlimited immigration, globalist, “diversity is strength,” outsourcing Bush administration.

    [Editor’s note: Joyce Reilly, may she forever be remembered, former air force captain and hostess of The Power Hour, which is still an excellent radio program, had the ultimate litmus test of a person’s credibility: If the person believes the official US government’s conspiracy theory about 9/11 or even pretends to believe it, then that person has no credibility. Another curiosity of 9/11 is that people who are convinced that the government always lies have made one exception to this belief: the government has told the truth about 9/11. This proves Hitler correct when he said, “The great masses of people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one — especially if it is repeated over and over.” Concurring, Joseph Goebbels said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”]

Copyright © 2005, 2019 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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A Letter: Money and Conspiracy Part 2 — Conspiracy

A Letter: Money and Conspiracy

Part 2 — Conspiracy

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: The following is a letter written in 2004 responding to an article by Mr. Rittenouse in Countryside. This letter has been divided into two parts: Part 1 — Money and Part 2 — Conspiracy.]

    Mr. Rittenhouse pooh-poohs the thought that some cabal may be working to control governments and the world. Some high and mighty people disagree with him. Here is a sample of what some of these important people have said about this cabal. I dare say; these people had much more insider information than Mr. Rittenhouse.
    Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.: “We are not going to achieve a new world order without paying for it in blood as well as words and money.”
    Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, “the outstanding power behind the New Deal”: “The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.” At a dinner party, Frankfurter was asked who ran the United States; he replied, “The real rulers of a nation are undiscoverable.”
    John F. Hylan, mayor of New York: “The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over our city, state and nation. . . . At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller-Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as the international bankers [who] virtually run the U.S. government for their own selfish purposes.”
    After observing governmental leaders of the United States consistently making concessions to the Soviet Union, James Forrestal, the first Secretary of Defense, commented, “These men are not incompetent or stupid. They are crafty and brilliant. Consistency has never been a mark of stupidity. If they were merely stupid, they would occasionally make a mistake in our favor.”
    President-elect Ronald Reagan: “I think there is an elite in this country and they are the very ones who run an elitist government. They want a government by a handful of people because they don’t believe the people themselves can run their lives. . . . Are we going to have an elitist government that makes decisions for people’s lives, or are we going to believe as we have for so many decades, that the people can make these decisions for themselves?”
    A few years after resigning as President, Richard Nixon wrote, “The nation’s immediate problem is that while the common man fights America’s wars, the intellectual elite sets its agenda. Today, whether the West lives or dies is in the hands of its new power elite: those who set the terms of public debate, who manipulate the symbols, who decide whether nations or leaders will be depicted on 100 million television sets as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ This power elite sets the limits of the possible for President and Congress. It molds the impressions that move the nation, or that mire it.”
    Jim Kirk, who had been a member of the Students for a Democratic Society, Communist Party, and the Black Panthers, said about the control of radical left groups: “Young people have no conception of the conspiracy’s strategy of pressure from above and pressure from below. . . . They have no idea that they are playing into the hands of the Establishment they claim to hate. The radicals think they are fighting the forces of the super rich, like Rockefeller and Ford, and they don’t realize that it is precisely such forces which are behind their own revolution, financing it, and using it for their own purposes.”
    Nicholas M. Butler, president of Columbia University, said to the Union League of Philadelphia: “The old world order died with the setting of the day’s sun and a New World Order is being born while I speak.” Butler was “J.P. Morgan’s chief spokesman for ivied halls.”
    Edward Bernays, chief advisor to William Paley, founder of CBS: “Those who manipulate the organized habits and opinions of the masses constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of the country. . . . It remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons. . . . It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world. . . . As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by opinion may be regimented.”
    Manly P. Hall, 33rd degree Freemason and a member of its inner circle, and probably the greatest Freemason of the twentieth century: “There exists in the world today, and has existed for thousands of years, a body of enlightened humans united in what might be termed, an Order of the Quest. It is composed of those whose intellectual and spiritual perceptions have revealed to them that civilization has secret destiny. The outcome of this ‘secret destiny’ is a World Order ruled by a King with supernatural powers. This King was descended of a divine race; that is, he belonged to the Order of the Illumined for those who come to a state of wisdom then belong to a family of heroes-perfected human beings.” He also wrote, “. . . It is beyond question that the secret societies of all ages have exercised a considerable degree of political influence. . . .”
    Winston Churchill admitted the existence of conspiracy when he wrote in 1920, “From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, to those of Trotsky, Bela Kun, Rosa Luxemburg, and Emma Goldman, this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization . . . has been steadily growing.”
    According to Lenin, the Communist Party could not survive without conspiracy. He wrote, “Conspiracy is so essential a condition of an organization of this kind that all other conditions . . . must be made to conform with it.”
    In a speech in 1931 before the Institute for the Study of International Affairs, the historian Arnold Toynbee said, “We are at the present working discreetly with all our might to wrest this mysterious force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local nation states of the world. All the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands, because to impugn the sovereignty of the local national states of the world is still a heresy for which a statesman or publicists can perhaps not quite be burned at the stake but certainly be ostracized and discredited.”
    ABC commentator Cokie Roberts remarked, “Global bankers are really running the world.”
    James Warburg, son of Paul Warburg, the author of the Federal Reserve System: “We shall have world government whether or not you like it — by conquest or consent.”
    Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of Great Britain: “The world is governed by very different personage from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.”
    Benjamin Disraeli: “The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments’ plans.”
    Franklinton Delano Roosevelt: “Nothing just happens in politics. If something happens you can be sure it was planned that way.”
    Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.”
    Elliot Roosevelt, son of Franklin Roosevelt: “There are within our world perhaps only a dozen organizations, which shape the course of our various destinies as rightly as the regularly constitutional government.”
    William Colby, CIA Director: “Sometimes, there are forces too powerful for us to whip them individually, in the time frame that we would like. . . . The best we might be able to do sometimes, is to point out the truth and then step aside.”
     Gary Allen, a historian of conspiracies: “. . . many of the major world events that are shaping destinies occur because somebody or somebodies have planned them that way. If we were merely dealing with the laws of average, half of the events affecting our nation’s well-being should be good for America. If we were dealing with mere incompetence, our leaders should occasionally make a mistake in our favor. . . . we are not really dealing with coincidence or stupidity, but with planning and brilliance.”
    Andre Baron: “Remember that the constant rule of the secret society is that the real authors never show themselves.”
    If these quotations do not suggest a conspiratorial cabal, then the origins of the Federal Reserve System should. The essence of what eventually became the act that established the Federal Reserve System was written by Paul Warburg of Kuhn, Loeb and Co. Assisting him were  Henry P. Davison, senior partner of J. P. Morgan and Co.; Charles D. Norton, president of (Morgan’s) First National Bank of New York; Frank A. Vanderlip, President of (William Rockefeller’s) National City Bank of New York; Benjamin Strong, vice-president of (Morgan’s) Bankers Trust Co.; A. Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; and Senator Nelson Aldrich, Morgan’s leading representative in Washington. This group met in secret in 1910 on Jekyll Island and drafted what eventually became the Federal Reserve System.
    The conspiratorial historians may be wrong, but the evidence strongly suggests that they are right.

Copyright © 2004, 2019 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Part 1

A Letter: Money and Conspiracy: Part 1 — Money

A Letter: Money and Conspiracy

Part 1 — Money

Thomas Allen

[Editor’s note: The following is a letter written in 2004 responding to an article by Mr. Rittenouse in Countryside. This letter has been divided into two parts: Part 1 — Money and Part 2 — Conspiracy.]


    The following are a few comments on Mr. Rittenhouse’s article “Commodities, Fiat, and Theories,” which appeared in the July/August issue.
    In defining money, Mr. Rittenhouse gives three components that an item must meet to be used as money. It is used as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. Federal reserve notes, which are what passes for money today, meet only two of these three criteria. It is not a store of value. Since the beginning of the Federal Reserve System in 1914, which has a governmentally protected monopoly on issuing (creating) money, the dollar has lost 95 percent of its value. Over this period, an ounce of gold is still worth an ounce of gold. In dollar terms, an ounce of gold equaled about $20 in 1914; today, it equals about $400 [at the beginning of 2019, it buys about $1280 in federal reserve notes]. Thus, gold has retained its value. It is far superior to federal reserve notes as a store of value.
    Furthermore, if federal reserve notes, which are instruments of debt, were the market’s first choice of money, the government would not have to make them legal tender. The legal tender law requires people to accept the governmentally declared money, federal reserve notes, in payment of debt or to forego payment of the debt.
    What made gold and silver money, along with the other items that Mr. Rittenhouse lists that have been used as money, is that they had other uses. Gold and silver are commodities that can be used for something other than money. That they can be used for other things gives them intrinsic value. Before we became so sophisticated, people would never have thought of voluntarily using paper for money because paper has such low intrinsic value. (The paper that was used for exchange was redeemable in gold or silver.) The intrinsic value of a $10 bill is the same as that of a $100 bill. They both use the same amount of paper and ink and cost the same to make. The lack of intrinsic value necessitates legal tender laws.
    Mr. Rittenhouse identifies problems with counterfeiting gold coins or stamping gold coins with a higher weight and purity than it actually has. Paper money has the same problems. There are licensed counterfeiters, which in the United States is the Federal Reserve System. There are unlicenced counterfeiters, who are the people that the Treasury Department goes after. In a society accustomed to a gold coin monetary system, detecting a counterfeit gold is easier for more people than detecting high-quality counterfeit money. (This is especially true when a situation like the one that occurred at the end of World War II. At the end of World War II, the United States gave the Soviet Union the plates and paper needed to print U.S. occupational currency.)
    What Mr. Rittenhouse writes about the Federal Reserve controlling the money supply as a matter of law is true. His claim that federal reserve notes are fiat currency and that people are required to accept them under the penalty of law is also true. The Federal Reserve may be doing a good job of controlling, i.e., increasing the money supply, but any good counterfeiter could do that. However, it has been an extremely poor steward of the dollar having destroyed 95 percent of its value.
    Mr. Rittenhouse goes on to describe the Kondratiev Wave. Like him, I am not sold on this theory. The stories that I read today arguing that we are in the trough the Kondratiev Wave are similar to those that I read in the 1970s. (When corrected for inflation, a bottom in real terms occurred in the 1970s, but was masked by inflation.) If the bottom occurred in the 1970s, then according to the timeline of this theory, the next bottom should not occur until circa 2020. Many of the current advocates of the Kondratiev Wave are predicting that gold like everything else, except the dollar, will decline in value.
    Paper money always loses value over time and eventually becomes worth no more than its Btu content or toilet paper. (In Zimbabwe, a roll of toilet paper has 720 squares and cost 10,000 Zimbabwean dollars. So, if one changes his $10,000-note in the one thousand $10-notes, he has 720 sheets for wiping and $280 left over for spending. [This was in 2004 before Zimbabwe's hyperinflation began really to accelerate.]) An ounce of gold remains an ounce of gold forever. Paper money loses value because the government, through its surrogate central bank, can print money easier than it can raise taxes.
    My outlook on the dollar is pessimistic. The dollar is going down and gold up. Debt is going to drive the dollar down. Before this run is over, which will last another five to ten years, gold is going to $5000 an ounce assuming things do not get really bad [my timing was off considerably for the dollar amount or for the years]. (The run is not over until the DJIA can be bought for an ounce of gold, which means stocks have a long way to fall and gold has a long way to rise.) If things get really bad, then gold is going beyond anyone’s wildest speculation. The wildest speculation that I have come across made by a person who follows the gold market is $111,000 per ounce. This should be a floor. If things get really bad, Mr. Rittenhouse is correct in that all our lives will be in great danger.
    Gold is probably the hardest market to trade or to invest in. In stock, bonds, real estate, and all other markets, the trader or investor has to fight his greed or his fear — never both together. In gold, he has to fight both at the same time. When gold is sky-high, greed enters as it does in other markets. Yet, when gold is sky-high, it is there because of fear.
    The bottom line is spend your federal reserve notes but save your gold. Use federal reserve notes as a purchasing medium, and use gold as a store of value.


Copyright © 2004, 2019 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Part 2

Mencken on the Future of Democracy

Mencken on the Future of Democracy

Thomas Allen

    In 1926, H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) wrote Notes on Democracy in which he expressed his views on democracy and related issues. He was a journalist, satirist, and critic and a libertarian and one of the leaders of the Old Right. In his book, he describes the future of democracy, pages 207-224. Below is an overview of his discussion on the future of democracy; my comments are in brackets.
    Mencken does not know if democracy will survive until the end of the age — the Second Coming. Nevertheless, democracy “came into the world as a cure-all, and it remains primarily a cure-all to this day. Any boil upon the body politic, however vast and raging, may be relieved by taking a vote; any flux of blood may be stopped by passing a law.” Under democracy “[t]he aim of government is to repeal the laws of nature, and re-enact them with moral amendments.” Thus, “[w]ar becomes simply a device to end war.” Moreover, “[t]he State, a mystical emanation from the mob, takes on a transcendental potency and acquires the power to make over the father which begat it.”
    Under democracy, nothing “remains inscrutable and beyond remedy, not even the way of a man with a maid. It was not so under the ancient and accursed systems of despotism, now happily purged out of the world. They, too . . . had certain pretensions of an Homeric gaudiness, but they at least refrained from attempts to abolish sin, poverty, stupidity, cowardice, and other such immutable realities.” [Thus, democracy has its war on poverty, war on drugs, war on the male and female sexes, war on racism, war on Confederate monuments, war on Christianity {Mencken may have approved of this war}, war on common sense, war on ____ {you fill in the blank}.] In the time of absolute monarchs, the “evils of the world were incurable: one put off the quest for a perfect moral order until one got to heaven.” Consequently, “a scheme of checks and balances [arose] that was consummate and completely satisfactory, for it could not be put to a test, and the logical holes in it were chinked with miracles. But no more. To-day the Holy Saints are deposed. Now each and every human problem swings into the range of practical politics.”   He continues, “Democracy becomes a substitute for the old religion, and the antithesis of it.” [Today, all issues have been politicized. Thus, everything preached in a church relates to politics — so much for the separation of church and state unless churches cease to exist, of which Mencken might have approved.]
    Mencken notes that democracy “shows all the magical potency of the great systems of faith. It has the power to enchant and disarm; it is not vulnerable to logical attack.” For proof, he comments on James Bryce’s Modern Democracy. Bryce “amasses incontrovertible evidence that democracy doesn’t work — and then concludes with a stout declaration that it does.” Then he cites “Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, with its argument that the North fought the Civil War to save self-government to the world! — a thesis echoed in falsetto, and by feebler men, fifty years later.”
    Continuing, Mencken remarks, “There is, in the human mind, a natural taste for such hocus-pocus. It greatly simplifies the process of ratiocination, which is unbearably painful to the great majority of men. . . . No doubt there is an explanation here of the long-continued popularity of the dogma of the Trinity, which remains unstated in plain terms after two thousand years.”
    He continues, “Democracy is shot through with this delight in the incredible, this banal mysticism. One cannot discuss it without colliding with preposterous postulates, all of them cherished like authentic hairs from the whiskers of Moses himself.” An example is the “acceptance of the faith that progress is illimitable and ordained of God that every human problem, in the very nature of things, may be solved.” Corollaries to this belief “are even more naive. One, for example, is to the general effect that optimism is a virtue in itself — that there is a mysterious merit in being hopeful and of glad heart, even in the presence of adverse and immovable facts. This curious notion turns the glittering wheels of Rotary, and is the motive power of the political New Thoughters called Liberals.”
    Mencken illustrates Liberal optimism with the League of Nations — which offered “superb clinical material to the student of democratic psychopathology.” The Liberal “began by arguing that the League would save the world.” [The same is seen with its descendant, the United Nations.] According to Mencken, “this sweet democratic axiom . . . is, fundamentally, what is the matter with the United States.”
    In spite of its multitude of flaws, Mencken believes that democracy “has some valuable merits.” He argues “that its [democracy] manifest defects, if they are ever to be got rid of at all, must be got rid of by examining them realistically.” For this to be accomplished, democracy must cease being a religion. Mencken has found no evidence that would convince “an ordinary jury, that vox populi is actually vox Dei. The proofs, indeed, run the other way. [In the Bible, God always chooses a spokesman of one and never chooses the majority.] The life of the inferior man is one long protest against the obstacles that God interposes to the attainment of his dreams, and democracy, if it is anything at all, is simply one way of getting round those obstacles.” Thus, democracy “represents, not a jingling echo of what seems to be the divine will, but a raucous defiance of it.” According to Mencken, democracy is truly civilized when it is “an effort to remedy the blunders and check the cruel humours of the Cosmic Kaiser.” [Thus, the primary usefulness of democracy is overcoming God.]
    Mencken states that “democracy may be a self-limiting disease, as civilization itself seems to be.” Then he comments on some of the “paradoxes in its philosophy,” some of which “have a suicidal smack.” For example, “[i]t offers John Doe a means to rise above his place beside Richard Roe, and then, by making Roe his equal, it takes away the chief usufructs of the rising. . . . [T]he history of democratic states is a history of disingenuous efforts to get rid of the second half of that dilemma. There is not only the natural yearning of Doe to use and enjoy the superiority that he has won; there is also the natural tendency of Roe, as an inferior man, to acknowledge it.” Mencken adds, “Democracy, in fact, is always inventing class distinctions, despite its theoretical abhorrence of them. . . . [Further,] [d]emocratic man . . . is quite unable to think of himself as a free individual; he must belong to a group, or shake with fear and loneliness and the group, of course, must have its leaders.”
    Mencken remarks that “there is a form of human striving that is understood by democratic man . . . and that is the striving for money. Thus the plutocracy, in a democratic state, tends to take the place of the missing aristocracy, and even to be mistaken for it.” [This is the Puritan mentality at work: Acquiring wealth is all-important.] However, a plutocracy “lacks all the essential characters of a true aristocracy: a clean tradition, culture, public spirit, honesty, honour, courage — above all, courage. It stands under no bond of obligation to the state; it has no public duty; it is transient and lacks a goal.” [Actually, the plutocracy does have a goal: the acquisition of absolute power. Anyway, the heads of multinational corporations and big banks fit Mencken’s description of a plutocrat.] The most all-powerful plutocrat comes “out of the mob only yesterday — and from the mob they bring all its peculiar ignobilities.” [Examples are the billionaires in the high technology industry and multimillionaires in entertainment and sports.] “As practically encountered, the plutocracy stands quite as far from the honnete homme [gentleman] as it stands from the Holy Saints.” The main characteristic of the plutocracy is its incurable timorousness; it is for ever grasping at the straws held out by demagogues.” Mencken claims, “Half a dozen gabby Jewish youths, meeting in a back room to plan a revolution . . . are enough to scare it half to death.” [Today, as was the situation when Mencken wrote, the plutocrats would be backing these “gabby Jewish youths” — guiding, inspiring, and financing them.]
    Mencken continues, “The plutocracy . . . is comprehensible to the mob because its aspirations are essentially those of inferior men: it is not by accident that Christianity, a mob religion, paves heaven with gold and precious stones, i.e., with money.” However, “reactions against this ignoble ideal among men of more civilized tastes, even in democratic states [do occur], and sometimes they arouse the mob to a transient distrust of certain of the plutocratic pretensions. But that distrust seldom arises above mere envy, and the polemic which engenders it is seldom sound in logic or impeccable in motive.”
    A plutocracy lacks the disinterestedness of an aristocracy. No body of opinion stands behind a plutocracy that is a free opinion. “Its chief exponents, by some divine irony, are pedagogues of one sort or another which is to say, men chiefly marked by their haunting fear of losing their jobs. Living under such terrors, with the plutocracy policing them harshly on one side and the mob congenitally suspicious of them on the other, it is no wonder that their revolt usually peters out in metaphysics, and that they tend to abandon it as their families grow up, and the costs of heresy become prohibitive. The pedagogue, in the long run, shows the virtues of the Congressman, the newspaper editorial writer or the butler, not those of the aristocrat.” If the pedagogue “persists in contumacy beyond thirty, it is only too commonly a sign, not that he is heroic, but simply that he is pathological.” He is a fanatic and not a statesman.
    “Thus politics, under democracy, resolves itself into impossible alternatives[:] . .  . the plutocracy on the one side and a rabble of preposterous impossibilists on the other.” Mencken remarks that “what democracy needs most of all is a party that will separate the good that is in it theoretically from the evils that beset it practically, and then try to erect that good into a workable system.” That is, what democracy “needs beyond everything is a party of liberty.” Mencken concludes, “It [democracy] produces, true enough, occasional libertarians, just as despotism produces occasional regicides, but it treats them in the same drum-head way. It will never have a party of them until it invents and installs a genuine aristocracy, to breed them and secure them.
    Mencken closes with democracy “is, perhaps, the most charming form of government ever devised by man. . . . It is based upon propositions that are palpably not true and what is not true, as every one knows, is always immensely more fascinating and satisfying to the vast majority of men than what is true. Truth has a harshness that alarms them, and an air of finality that collides with their incurable romanticism. . . . More, democracy gives it a certain appearance of objective and demonstrable truth. The mob man, functioning as citizen, gets a feeling that he is really important to the world — that he is genuinely running things. . . . [He is convinced] that he is somehow wise, that his views are taken seriously by his betters.” Moreover, happiness for the democrat is illusionary. “The seeds of his disaster . . . lie in his own stupidity: he can never get rid of the naive delusion . . . that happiness is something to be got by taking it away from the other fellow. . . . Here the irony that lies under all human aspiration shows itself: the quest for happiness, as always, brings only unhappiness in the end. . . . [Thus,] the true charm of democracy is not for the democrat but for the spectator.” Mencken contends, “The fraud of democracy . . . is more amusing than any other — more amusing even, and by miles, than the fraud of religion.”
    [Most of Mencken’s animosities toward religion as presented in this book seems to flow primarily from Methodists and Baptists of the South and West with some minor input from the New England religions. Their support of Prohibition, creationism, censorship, and general opposition to vice seems to be the major cause of his rancor toward religion. Moreover, Mencken seems to judge Christianity by the charlatan, scoundrels, buffoons, fanatics, Puritans, sharpies, shysters, and ignoramuses who speak in its name rather than by the words on which it is founded. If he studied the Bible instead of relying on those who claim to speak for God, he may have still concluded that religion, Christianity, is a fraud. {For all that I know, he may have done this.} However, his judgment would be based on the Bible and not what others claim about it or say about it. Unfortunately, too many Christians take the lazy and easy way out by following the charlatan, scoundrels, buffoons, fanatics, Puritans, sharpies, shysters, and ignoramuses instead of studying the Bible themselves. Most of the problems that Mencken associates with Christianity come from these lazy Christians taking the easy road of following the wrong leaders.]

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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